Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Working in the Dark

This morning I got to work at about 6:20 a.m. The building where I work has automatic controls on some of the offices to make sure the lights are turned off at night. Our lights turn off at, well I don't know, I've never worked that late. They turn on about 7:00 a.m. Usually, however, I can over ride the computer that controls the lights by calling a special number, adding some codes and an earlier start time. When I did that today, the phone number was busy so I could not turn on the lights. There I was working in the dark (well mostly dark). There was some light from the computer screen and an emergency light outside my office. Kathi had asked me for something via e-mail late last night that I did not get until this morning (I go to bed a lot earlier than she does normally). I had to work on it in the dark. I found that I was able to type-by-touch with no problem at all. Back in high school I taught myself how to type. Typing for me is kind of an automatic thing (if you can ingor the typos) that I can do in the light or dark. I sent her what she wanted just as the light came on!It got me to thinking, what else can we do in the dark? By dark I mean when some input or information you normally have for a task is not available. What do we do "in the dark?" The Bible has some warnings about what some people do in the dark, I'm not necessarily talking about those things. How can we compensate when input is missing? In my typing example, I was able to compensate by years of practice and those little raised bumps on the "F" and "J" keys. What if some "critical" piece of information is missing? or some person is needed? What do we do then? Do we sit and wait? Do we give up and do something else? Or do we push forward with what we know until the missing pieces come together? I suspect that the truly successful people "work in the dark" a lot. Maybe the light comes on after we start working, maybe it doesn't. But if we wait until every thing is perfect, will we ever accomplish anything worthy of our calling as Children of God? May the Light of our Lord Jesus shine into our lives even when there is no other light at all!Love, Steve

1 comment:

that's a really intersting question. i think that a lot of the time we let "light" or whatever it is we think we need to function, block what we do. meaning, we think we need more than we do and use that as a crutch for accomplishing things using what we were blessed with. i know my creativity and abilities are tried when i'm sick or having a hard time or really broke but the things in those time are often much more effective because i have to trust in something greater than myself. just a thought!